WordPress is a powerful blogging platform yet it isn’t without its weaknesses.  Because it is a popular open-source platform, it lends itself to becoming vulnerable to attacks from hackers. A number of WordPress blogs have been victims to these attacks.  There are some things that you can do however to reduce your vulerability and no longer become the low hanging fruit on the tree.  Here are 3 things you can do to secure your wordpress blog more tightly

1) Don’t use the default admin username.

One of the most important things that you can do to secure your blog is to use another login name for the admin other than the default login name.  When you install wordpress onto your website, most of the time, people tend to use the default login name of ‘admin’ and that makes it easier for hackers to get into your admin panel because then they only will need to guess the password.  This one thing alone can cut down on the the ease of hackers getting into your blog.

2) Keep your blog updated

WordPress is constantly coming out with new versions that have been tested against the latest known attacks.  These new versions keep your blog from being vulerable to the popular attacks that are out there.  It is quite easy these days to upgrade your blog , as it is as simple as clicking a button.  If the automatic upgrade doesn’t work, it is probably due to not enough space in your hosting account, or some change in the server setting that needs to be done.  If you do have enough memory, then contact your hosting server and let them know of the problem.  They should be able to change the setting and fix it.  One of the good things about wordpress is because it is so popular, your hosting server customer service has probably seen the problem before and will know what to do to fix it.

3)  Back up your wordpress database regularly.

Once your site has been hacked, sometimes there is very little that can be done about it.  If you have a backup of your data, then your website can be easily restored to the latest state that it was backed up.  This step is more of a rescue step than a preventative hacking step…  however it is a preventive step in terms of complete website loss.

Taking preventative measures now means that you won’t have to worry in the future about the stability of your site.  The thing is that you want to not be the low hanging fruit in regards to hackers.  Taking a few security steps is all you need to keep off of the hackers radar.